We went exploring before dinner and found the town extremely close. Late evening is the time for everyone to come out in the coolness of dusk. All the bar and cafes are packed solid and there are a lot of nice shops opened until 8 pm. We ended up in a part of town where it felt like ther had been an earthquake of bombing fairly recently. Not whole neighbourhood being flatten doen but individual buildings between 2 standing one, in every street. Again, Spanish town planning does not seem to work in the same way as anywhere else….gaping holes of rusty colour material, we think it is like the insulation foam we used at home and that it helps with keeping bricks and mortar together. Admittedly, some gaps boasted some interesting murals but the overall feeling was one of sadness.
6th September
We have the whole day to go and explore Cartagena properly. Loads of history here although not always visible at first glance . We started with the roman amphitheatre which is literally less than 300 metres from where Mr X is tied up. That was well worth it. I found it amazing that this structure which could hold up to 7,000 people was lost until rediscovered in 1997 when they tore down some of the oldest and less salubrious part of town. Time and time again new buildings were erected and torn down within the semi circle of the theatre, the streets following the gradients’ of the seats and the stone reused at each regeneration. The museum is well worth a visit as it does show how asuch a structure can be lost over the centuries and then found again.
We carried on our cultural tour with the roman ruins of the therms, again very nicely done and informative. It did show something I had never seen before windows made out of translucent gypsum. Some of the painting were also still visible.
Wandering around, we found the castle at the top of the hill, the tottering bull ring which was built over the roman ruins, kept upright with scaffold all around, the nice old fashion train station. We even found a barber and given the good job she was doing on a pair of kids, fancy work with lines at the back, we both had a haircut (€5 for Ian and €10 for me…and she spent less time on my haircut!).
We ended up at the top of the hill for the sunset which was quite spectacular; the old wind mill had been restored and set in a garden with further roman ruins scattered around, very nicely done, showing the layers of history one on top of another.
Getting back down, we were back in the 21st century with all the shops of the main street buzzing with shoppers, bars and restaurants full.